Word: gruffness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Moreover, some of the qualities that Americans love in Iacocca the gruff, can-do businessman might work against Iacocca the presidential candidate. Could a hard-driving corporate titan, accustomed to speaking his mind and having his way, cope with the subtleties and compromises of American realpolitik? The draft-Iacocca boosters may underestimate the depth of his lifelong love affair with the auto business. He adores the nuts and bolts of it, the marketing strategies, the finite way in which success (or failure) is easily measured. With Chrysler on the rebound, Iacocca harbors impossible dreams of driving his company past Ford...
Although the inevitability of Beatrice-Joanna's psychological paralysis is meant to move us, it doesn't because the gruff and ready D'Aquila hasn't accumulated any sweet-maidenhood points. We don't care that she makes love to a man she hates in order to obviate marrying another man she scorns (and all for the sake of a third man whom she loves but deceives). We like her so little we find it hard to view her tragic demise as anything but deserving comeuppance...
ENTER THE FIRST complication. Jack, a gruff, gentle-looking newspaperman, claims that he is innocent. Enter the second complication. Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close), a hotshot, tough-talking lawyer, believes that Jack is telling the truth, so convincing herself of his innocence that she falls in love with him. From this point the movie winds on, full of emotional tension: love entangled with mistrust and evidence confused with truth. The conclusion, of course, must be kept a secret. The only guarantee is that it will be a complete surprise...
...first machine in 1970, Jones has manufactured some 400,000 of the devices. The company he owns, Nautilus Sports/Medical Industries (estimated 1984 sales: $300 million), has become the leading U.S. maker of exercise equipment. Jones, however, is even more extraordinary than his machine. No mild-mannered tinkerer, the gruff and often profane tycoon rules an unlikely empire that includes a menagerie of wild animals, two Boeing 707 jets and a $70 million television studio...
...might be a gruff old gent with a streak of eccentricity and a taste for adventure, while the other is younger, more level-headed and a bit uptight. Or if one is an overenthusiastic amateur, the other is a world-weary pro with a hard veneer of cynicism. They seem to bicker constantly, these mismatched TV couples, yet they share a grudging respect and affection--sometimes even a wedding ring. They can be found all over the prime-time dial these days, their names often linked by racy ampersands: Simon & Simon, Hardcastle & McCormick, Kate & Allie, Cagney & Lacey, MacGruder & Loud...